Last Jedi Is on Target for Huge $200M Opening Weekend

Not surprisingly, Star Wars: The Last Jedi looks like it's going to have an enormous debut at the box office next month. New tracking numbers for the latest entry in the Skywalker saga have arrived and the movie is expected to bring in $200 million or more on its opening weekend. That's not going to be enough to best Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but it's still a huge number and one that proves interest in Star Wars is as strong as ever.

Interest in Star Wars: The Last Jedi is tremendously high as fans have many questions, given what happened in The Force Awakens. As such, the movie is going to likely have the biggest opening weekend at the box office of any movie in 2017. Currently, that record belongs to Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast, which brought in $174.8 million on its opening weekend back in March. Beauty and the Beast also remains the highest-grossing movie of 2017 overall, with a grand total $1.26 billion worldwide.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens set an all time record in 2015, bringing in $248 million on its opening weekend. It's unlikely that Star Wars: The Last Jedi will reach that number, even if projections go up. But considering that The Force Awakens was the first Star Wars movie to come out in a decade, it's not likely that Disney and Lucasfilm will be able to replicate that kind of hype again. No matter how you look at it, $200 million is a truly massive opening.

If Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which arrives in theaters on December 15, does indeed cross the $200 million mark on its opening weekend, it will be only the fourth movie in history to do so. In addition to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World ($208.8 million) did so in 2015 and The Avengers ($207.4 million), was the first to cross that benchmark in 2012. As far as how it stacks up against Rogue One: A Star Wars Story? The standalone brought in $155.1 million last December, so it looks like the power of Luke Skywalker is still very strong, as fans are quite eager to see The Last Jedi get some significant screen time.

Reactions to Star Wars: The Last Jedi haven't made their way online yet, but all signs indicate that director Rian Johnson has made something special. Disney and Lucasfilm have already given the director an entire new trilogy of Star Wars movies that will take place outside of the Skywalker saga. Variety notes that Disney has yet to comment on the tracking, but they're probably going to keep a bit quiet until the movie gets a bit closer to release.